How do you like the look of this?



Saw this in someone's Yosemite pictures.  Prices are jacked up for the tourists of course, but damn....

The Smurfs

buh?  live action? 

You mean you haven't seen the trailer?

One more...

I got the Uniden DECT phones a couple months ago.  Works fine, no problems.  I never had any problems with the 5.8Ghz Uniden phones I had before either though.

[Brewing with too little coffee will result in over-extraction, and that means bitterness.]

Theres an episode of Good Eats hosted by Alton Brown that addresses the perfect cup of coffee. Watch that. I love that show.

I was just going to bring that up.  Here's the Cliff's Notes version from the Food Network website.

Regardless of method, brew using 2 heaping tablespoons of coffee for each 6 ounces of clean (filtered or bottled), cool water. If you prefer a milder cup, brew to full strength, and then dilute with hot water. Brewing with too little coffee will result in over-extraction, and that means bitterness.

If two tablespoons per cup sounds like too much then that last sentence tells you why your coffee sucks.   

It's turn based strategy like GalCiv. The first one sounded good but was broken.  We'll see if they get it right this time.  Here's a review of the original.

Ask and ye shall receive....

Dude, you should've posted this one dude.

Protecting and Maintaining Your Heterosexual House of Cards

Tried it a couple years ago (and here's the OO thread to prove it  ) and thought it was fun but a bit simple.  Looks like they've improved on it immensely since then.  There's even a mod community for it.  I never played Space Rouge but anyone who likes Space Rangers or EV:Nova should give this a try.  The download is only 11MB.  Here's a recent review that would be worth a read.

Reposting my comments from OO but it looks like they're trying to address the newbie issue with a decent tutorial and some other game modes that don't require the RTS portion.  It was pretty hard on the old one to just jump in when it was so team focused.  I saw this preview on 1up for "duel mode" which just lets you do battle with other guys.  Sounds like a good way to get your skills up without having to worry about the other game mechanics. 

I haven't played more than the first half of the tutorial though I don't have much opinion on it either way yet.

[FREE Beta Access For New Accounts]

I just found this, a Christmas present from the Savage 2 developers. 

FREE Beta Access For New Accounts

All new accounts created on 12/25/2007 EST will be given Beta Access for the remainder of the beta.

If you already have an account, on Christmas Day, login at the top of the page at http://www.s2games.com and click the link that says "Activate My Demo Account For Beta" which will appear ONLY on 12/25

These new beta accounts will NOT be given access to the Beta Forums.

The game has a set release date of Wednesday, Jan 16, 2008.

Sounds like a good idea to drum up some interest.  Savage 2 had completely fallen off my radar and I hadn't heard anything about it in a while.

The live action Speed Racer trailer.  He's a demon and he's going to be raping your childhood.   

Japanese Bruce Willis impersonator.:

http://www.videosift.com/video/Bruce-Willis-Impersonator

Here's the motion test explanation:

Static and Motion Resolution
A new test for this year takes a step further beyond the bandwidth test and judges how well a display is able to handle moving resolution. Because much of what we all watch has motion in it, this test is a valuable tool in judging what we'll really see when watching program material like sports and action movies or with gaming. A consumer electronics industry association created the FPD Benchmark Software for the Professional Blu-ray disc to "accurately evaluate the performance parameters" of displays. The test pattern I selected for our tests is called a monoscope pattern, which consists of a series of four black lines drawn so that they gradually become closer together to form a wedge pattern. You can see this series of wedges at the bottom, top, and sides of a center circle. To test horizontal motion resolution, you look at the bottom wedges. The first pattern is stationary, and the number listed is determined by how close the lines can be displayed and still be discerned as four separate lines. The numbers adjacent to the lines indicate the disc's resolution at those coordinates. The highest number—seen at the point where the four lines begin to merge or blur—is recorded as the static number.

The same pattern is also displayed moving from left to right. The software notes the point at which the pattern blurs and you can no longer distinguish the four lines. This test is somewhat subjective. For instance, I asked some of the store salespeople at the location where I conducted these tests to provide their observations. The numbers varied slightly from observer to observer, but it was always within 25 points of the number I selected. For the sake of consistency, I picked all of the numbers that are recorded in the chart. All the HDTVs I tested for stationary and motion performance were 1080p models.

So what they're measuring is latency not resolution.  Pretty much every current HD technology; plasma, LCD, DLP, LCoS, is fixed pixel meaning that the picture is made up of a grid of pixels that's always 1920x1080 for 1080p or 1280x720 for 720p.  The number of pixels doesn't change at any time, it physically can't.  The latency of the display on the other hand is going to affect what the resolution "appears" to be.  The latency holds enough residual image in the pixels as the object moves past them to give the screen the appearance of reduced resolution.  It is not a literally a different resolution even though the article makes it sound as if it is. 

Even better - Pineapple cheddar burger.  Yum!   

Draw envious looks when you stick a camera in your TWA/T!

AACK!!!! It's "Davison"!! Don't let that middle "d" sneak in there!! Bad "d"! Shoo!!

Doh!   Oops, 'd' again.  I mean oh!   

Tom Baker.  (I think) His episodes were the first ones shown in the US and he had the longest run.  Post Baker I kinda liked Peter Davidson and Sylvester McCoy.  McCoy could have been a more memorable Doctor if he had better written episodes.  The show was definitely on it's last legs by then though.

David Tennant has been a great new Doctor.  I can't wait for the next new season to start.

   Lego Hawking is teh awesomest!   

I've had a Samsonite laptop backpack for four or five years now.  Usually I'd go through a couple in that amount of time but this one is still as solid as the day I bought it.  Absolutely no signs of fraying or popped stitching at the usual weak points like the shoulder straps.  I also like that it's smaller than most laptop backpacks but still has plenty of useable space.  I didn't want another big and bulky bag and this one has been great.

This one looks like an updated version of mine but with some extra side pockets and a spare battery compartment on the front.  Nicer padding on the shoulder straps too.  There's also this "Executive backpack" model which looks nice and has some extra features but it's also almost twice as much.

EPA definition:  "Urban/suburban land uses are the most rapidly growing land use class generating non-point source loadings likely to seriously impair streams.  Impervious cover is the amount of land cover in roads, buildings and parking lots, and turf grass cover in a watershed and can seriously impact biotic integrity in associated streams."

So the pavement in the "not yours" frame is impervious cover that's destroying streams.    Dunno.... cats hate water therefore...   

(I work with environmental engineers and I'm not sure they'd get it either.)

Edi looks too much like Foreman.

That might be intentional.  If Foreman, Chase and Cameron are still around House would have endless fun taunting them with a 'clone' team.  Edi as Foreman, Kal as Chase and Anne as Cameron.  Olivia Wilde for the future multi-episode sexual harassment suit plotline.   

What would House want with a plastic surgeon?  Seems like an odd choice for the short list.

Megas XLR



 

I've caught a few Firefly episodes on there but I didn't know about BSG.  I hope the BSGs are on a normal schedule, Firefly always seems to start on half hours so end up jumping in on the middle of an episode.

I assume it's because he went into the future instead of the past. 

Pull my saber.